


Cool Skaters Don't Wear Helmets

by morethanmedia



Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen, Head Injury, Hurt/Comfort, Unconsciousness, Whump
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-23
Updated: 2020-04-30
Packaged: 2021-02-23 06:08:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,883
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23807011
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/morethanmedia/pseuds/morethanmedia
Summary: Roman stays at the skatepark on a sun-scorched day while his friend's ditch for cooler climes, maybe he should have worn a helmet if he was going to stay by himself...
Kudos: 2





	1. Part 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written in collaboration with fantastic Whumperfect from Tumblr without whom this never would have existed

Cool Skaters Don’t Wear Helmets

Part 1:

That landing was effortless, Roman thought to himself, beaming with pride as he looked to his skater mates hanging out on top of the mini vert, who applauded.  
“Nice job, Roman, but we’re gonna bounce.” Shouted one of the onlookers. And after a pause: “you coming?”   
He thought about it for a second, his eyes wandering up to the fluffy white clouds that hugged the baby blue horizon. “Nah too nice a day.”   
“Too damn hot is more like it,” chuckled his excited viewers, leaving the concrete park and the loan skater to their own devices.  
Roman shrugged his shoulders as he watched his friends disappear behind the tattered gate. A rusted sign read; ‘KEEP OUT unless the gate is unlocked’. Not that that stopped kids breaking in, anyways. Roman took his board to the top of the park and let the sun melt into his clothes, his arms, his face. What a truly magnificent afternoon it was. This was his favorite kind of weather: in the dead of summer, with humidity and heat pounding into him like rain on asphalt.   
The town all around him looked like it was straight out of the darkest part of Hollywood. The streets were littered with people and trash, and all around the buildings were carved out of stone and built out of brick. The look achieved was somewhat old, like a western film plopped into the middle of the mountains. Boom Town was a place old people moved to and young people moved from. As soon as the students graduated from the dilapidated high school, they hit the road and hoped to never return. As it was, many that graduated later described a supernatural- like pull that led them home. Roman didn’t believe it for a second and knew that as soon as he left, he was never coming back.   
He dropped his board on the hot concrete and rested his foot upon it, breathing the scalding air into his lungs. Hopping on his board, he let the wind flow through his hair as he took a couple of laps around the pipes, diagonals, and runs that had been carved into the hill above Boom Town. He was just getting started.   
Roman tugged his board back to the top of the hill, already warmed up and ready to start practicing more tricks. His friends were long gone and he relished in the silence of the mountains. Here, the oly noise were the songbirds passing overhead in their playful circles, and the occasional rustle of the breeze in the pine trees above the skate park. Pretty soon, as summer turned into fall, thousands of honking geese would disturb the silence; but not now.   
As Roman cruised the drop, he hooked his board with his toe and flipped it, landing hard but safely. Cruising up the other side, and coming to a stop at the top, Roman couldn’t help but glue a wide smile to his face. This was what he was meant to do. There was no purpose, in this moment, other than the connection between his feet and the graffiti board.   
Tipping his torso and his board forward once more, Roman soared down the halfpipe. He flipped his board at the bottom, and while the jump had been smooth, the landing was anything but. Catching a crack that had long been in need of repair, Roman spun out of control quickly. One moment he was flying, and the next he was lying on the ground, his cheek pressed into the hard asphalt, pain sizzling up and down the right side of his body. His board was completely still, lying on its side a couple of feet away. He blinked.  
Must’ve blacked out, he thought, slowly urging himself to sit. How long had it been? A minute, max. He rubbed his head and winced when his hand brushed his cheek. Taking his phone out of his pocket, he examined his face with care. It looked worse than it was, he told himself. There were a couple of long, shallow scratches stretching from his cheekbone to just below the corner of his mouth, and already a dark welt was forming near his eye. It was beginning to swell, too.   
Roman examined his arm and leg, too, which both had a series of deep cuts running along them. They were painful, but even so Roman forced himself to stand. As he righted himself, dark spots took over his vision, and he swayed, struggling to stay upright. Come on, Roman, it’s not that bad. Don’t be such a girl. He tightened his jaw and walked slowly to his board.   
He picked it up.   
Tenderly scraping the dust off of the wheels and the top, he then proceeded to make his way again to the top of the halfpipe. He breathed in. Out. He let the hot air wash over him like a wave of steam. He let the pain roll off of him in vibrational waves. He let the birdsong enter his mind and cleanse it. He let the gritty texture of the board scrape against his arms and fingers. He let the breeze blow his blonde hair into his eyes and out again. He let the moment sink in. And then, he dropped his board to the concrete, fought through the sea of nausea, and rolled down the halfpipe at a leisurely pace.   
Ahead, the gentle blue skies birthed ominous storm clouds. 

When the rain started, Roman was halfway down the hill. The blood had been oozing out of his cuts steadily and showed few signs of stopping. His right eye had swollen deeply, and a plum purple color-tinted his eyelids and brow. The rain washed his sweat away.   
Trying to stand upright while fighting the nausea that was rolling in his belly, he staggered downhill, which was a feat in itself. But feeling the cooling rain on his skin helped him feel more alive than he had a few minutes before. He glanced towards his destination; the parking lot at the foot of the hill, which seemed like an impossibly long journey.  
Thoughts of how he was going to get home without having to explain what happened to him were haunting him. These tremulous ideas, which included questions of how to call his friends for a ride, were interrupted as a familiar guitar rift erupted from the deep hidden cargo pocket on his shorts.  
“My phone! I have my phone!” Reaching to his pant pocket and retrieving the ringing device he couldn’t tell if his legs gave out, or if he had tripped over his own feet. Regardless, the grassy incline came up to meet him, and the feeling of falling and rolling downwards was all he knew before his world once again went black.  
Pain greeted him as consciousness slowly returned, followed by his internal alarm system. The shooting pressure in his chest signaled warning signs that screamed: “I can’t breathe!” Thrashing about on the hard ground, he rolled himself onto his side with the little energy he had left. Gasping as the air returned to his lungs and the red hot pain in his body receded, Roman rested his heavy head on the grass and closed his eyes. Maybe the crash had been a little bit worse than he had originally thought.   
With a crash, the nausea returned to his stomach, eliminating any relief he had felt moments before. Roman groaned and crawled to his feet, swaying, then steadying himself carefully. I have to get home. Thoughts pushed his feet forward.   
The rain fell faster.  
Every beat against him was like an echo of his racing heart. Even when he thought it impossible for his heart to beat louder, or faster, it would. Faster. Louder. Louder, faster. Fasterfasterfaster it seemed to race as Roman picked his way down the hill. The hill seemed to stretch out before him forever, the parking lot continuously running away from his reach.   
Finally, he arrived, breathing heavily, his body’s sweat masked by the pouring rain. Thunder cracked. Moments later, lightning flashed overhead, illuminating the darkened streets with an eerie glow. His house, only blocks away from the skate park, seemed like miles away as Roman wandered down the twisting streets. Nobody was outside, the windows were all shut and the curtains tightly drawn. Even the trash that littered the streets seemed to rest in silent fury, watching Roman as he passed slowly by.   
His house was the third one down the street, on the left, tucked between a towering square right house and a dilapidated wooden house, whose paint job had chipped long ago, and in which no one lived inside. Walking up the steps, Roman caught himself on the railing, dizzy. His head swam as he retrieved the key from under the carpet and unlocked the door.  
Safe from the torrential downpour outside, Roman shook his head free of raindrops and pulled off his shoes. His board he deposited in the entryway, and silently he tiptoed to his room. Nobody else was home. He hoped.   
Using all the effort he could muster, Roman crawled his way up to the second floor. A wave of dizziness nearly overwhelmed him as he reached the top. Just barely catching himself on the railing, Roman hunched over himself, his breath heaving, fighting the urge to throw up.   
Letting the wave a nausea pass, Roman slowly found his way to the half bath near his room. Still not positive if anybody was home, Roman made sure to make as little noise as possible as he closed and locked the bathroom door behind him. Roman gently eased the bathroom door shut, and in the pitch black of the room, he reached blindly for the light switch. Managing to stub his toe soundly on the vanity cabinet along the way, he doubled over in pain again, groaning, once again resisting the overwhelming urge to uproot his insides.   
Cursing under his breath, Roman managed to locate the light switch. The bathroom instantly illuminated in a blinding light. Closing his eyes and keeping them screwed shut, Roman supported himself on the bathroom counter and blindly searched for bath cloths and bandages for his cuts and bruises. Slowly, Roman drew his t-shirt over his face, dropping it in a bloody pile on the bathroom floor. Opening the mirror cabinet, he reached for the largest bottle of pain killing medicine, downing five of them in one large swallow.   
Turning, Roman tried to look at the wounds on his arm in the mirror. Wincing, Roman uncapped the hydrogen peroxide bottle and poured it down his arm. It flowed into the semi-coagulated scrapes, causing small shooting pains to dig into his body. He grunted, clenching his teeth and doing his best to focus on anything but the pain. Roman cursed out loud, and then clenched his jaw. He had forgotten to remain quiet, and hoped to God no one was home.   
Whimpering, he poured the rest of the bottle on his cuts. Only after the bottle was empty did he notice that he had bitten through his lip. He stumbled to the toilet, wrenched the lid open, and lost his lunch in the toilet bowl.


	2. Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Roman stays at the skatepark on a sun-scorched day while his friend's ditch for cooler climes, maybe he should have worn a helmet if he was going to stay by himself...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part two: continuation of Cool Skaters Don't Wear Helmets

Exhausted, Roman lay on the bathroom floor, eyes closed, possessing not the energy, nor the will to stand. How long he had been there, Roman could not recall. Only that he was in dire pain, and that every part of his body ached from the wretched heaving. It was then that Roman heard the car pull up out front. His stomach dropping in panic, Roman heaved himself to his feet with a scream. Looking out the window, he realized that his parents were home. They had picked his sister up from play practice too, he realized, as she joyfully hopped out of the back of the car.   
He ran to his room, where he threw on a pair of sweatpants and a long sleeve shirt, doing his best to conceal the cuts along his arms and legs. Having no way to cover the cuts on his face, Roman quickly formulated a story. He had been skating down the hill. Wasn’t paying attention. A tree branch whipped him in the cheeks and scraped his face. He hoped that his parents would believe him; they didn’t need to know the real story. Likely, if they found out, they would overreact and he would have to spend the evening in the hospital, a couple of hours drive away.   
When his parents walked into the house, they found Roman in the kitchen, searching through the fridge.   
“Hey Rome,” his mother greeted him, plopping a kiss onto the back of his head. He winced internally, but managed to greet her with a nonchalant tone.  
“Hey mum, how was your day?”  
“Oh, you know. This and that. People are so hard to manage when they’re cranky. And mind you, they’re always cranky.” She laughed, dropping her keys on the counter and reaching into the pantry for some cheez-its. His father walked into the kitchen, his hair a mess from the wind outside, and slightly damp from the rain that was still falling lightly. His father was followed by Anna, his little sister. She wore a bright raincoat and a glorious smile, almost enough to light the entire room with joy.   
“Hey Rome!” she cried, running over to hug him with a barrel hug. He grunted as her little body collided with his, but stayed on his feet and returned the hug. “What’s on your face?”  
“Oh this?” He reached up to tough the scratch. “I was skating down the hill and wasn’t paying attention, ran into a tree branch, nasty damn trees. I don’t understand why they don’t trim the branches that hang over the road.”  
“Did you clean it?” His mother asked, a look of concern cloudy her face.   
“Of course, we’ll need some more hydrogen peroxide though, the bottle was almost empty and I finished it.” A lie; the bottle had been full.  
“Damn, really?” His father asked. “I just picked some up at Costco the other day.”   
Roman shrugged, continuing with the lie; “I don’t know what to tell you, there was barely anything left.”   
“Okay,” his dad nodded. “I’ll pick some up at the store when I go next week. Roman, can you start making a list of things we need? I don’t want to drive all the way to the city and back only to discover we’ve forgotten something.” He chuckled to himself. Roman nodded, blinking through the pain as he crossed the kitchen to fetch the writing pad and pen. He scribbled down a few things onto the list:  
Hydrogen peroxide  
Advil  
Jellybellies…  
He put the pad down; they could add to it later. If they wanted. He blinked. He breathed. Tears sprung to his eyes. What was happening? He blinked. He breathed. Something was wrong. He blinked. But breath wouldn’t come. It was caught in the space between his lungs and his mouth. His legs turned to jelly as he sunk to the floor. He stared straight ahead. Something was wrong. Why couldn’t he breathe? Why would no words come even as his head screamed for help?  
“Roman?” Thank God, it was his mother. She was looking at him in a curious manner, concern spread across her face like butter. “Roman what’s wrong?” he could hear her footsteps tapping against the tiles as she made her way around the counter towards him. “Roman.” She gasped and tried to catch him as his legs gave out. Why could he not stand? He was strong enough… wasn’t he? The scratches on his face, legs and arms stung, bringing wet tears to his eyes. As wet and large as the raindrops that fell from the sky outside.   
“Blake!” His mother yelled to his father. “Blake start the car!” The car? What for? A curtain of darkness descended over his eyes, and he was falling.


	3. Part 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Roman stays at the skatepark on a sun-scorched day while his friend's ditch for cooler climes, maybe he should have worn a helmet if he was going to stay by himself...

Blake was not one to break laws. Nor was his wife, Shirley. However, when it came to the safety of their son, there was a mutual agreement that any laws could be broken. Driving well over the speed limit, Blake just hoped that it was enough to get to the hospital on time. They lived at least two hours away, and the roads were tedious, even in the summer. It has been Shirley that had seen Roman’s collapse, an event that she wished never to witness again. The pain in her son’s eyes had broken her heart as he had crumpled to the floor. Upon investigation, she had found multiple scrapes and many bruises, including a large bump on his head. Wasn’t he wearing a helmet? She scolded him, stroking his hair with care.

It was still raining. The teardrops hit the windshield in a panic, mirroring the panic that the two parents felt for their child.

Shirley and Roman were in the back seat. Roman’s head was on Shirley’s lap, his legs sprawled over the rest of the back seat. His seat belt was fastened, safety first, and his eyes were closed. His face was screwed into a pained frown, as if he were suffering from a nightmare that he couldn’t wake from.

“Just hang in there,” Shirley whispered in his ear. Briefly, she regretted leaving Anna at home by herself but cleared the thought from her mind. She wouldn't worry about both children at once, it wouldn’t do anyone any good. Anna was old enough to take care of herself. She hoped. Outside, the green pine trees whizzed by. They were so still and serene. She wished that her life could be as simple as the ancient trees that stretched their branches up to the sky.

Roman moaned, his eyes fluttering like a butterfly’s. She stroked his hair more, leaning down to kiss his forehead. It was hot and sweaty, as if a fever had already started to set in. What had it been, a couple of hours? No way they could be infected yet. He had been fine this morning when she’d headed off to work. That was only a couple of hours ago; so much had happened between now and then.

His eyes. Why so much pain? What was wrong.

The events kept circling in her head over and over.

The pen was on the counter, where he had dropped it moments before. There was an ink stain on his hand. Blue. Smeared half an inch across the side of his hand. His hands were shaking. His knees were shaking. Something was wrong. His mouth moved but no words came out. He was staring at her across the counter. What was he trying to say? His eyes rolled into the back of his head and he was on the floor, crumpled in a pile, all twisted around himself. She called for Blake to start the car. He rushed into the kitchen, saw what was happening, and scooped the boy into his arms. He looked so small. So, so small. No longer the teenager he was, but the boy they had raised. His face was so fragile, his brows knitted together, forming a small mountain in between his eyes. His arms and legs swung limply, tapping each other with every footfall. She had yelled at Anna. Stay home! She had said. She had promised to call their neighbors later, ask them to take Anna for the night.

Then what had happened? Shirley thought back, consumed in the thunderstorm memories.

The car had started the third time. Each time the engine rolled over, lightning bolts of nervous energy had shot through her stomach. Tentacles of energy tingled through her arms, her shoulders, her back. Butterflies swarmed in her stomach as she held on to her son for dear life. The energy licked at her brain, illuminating every cell in her body. They were ultra-active, slowing time, capturing every moment in fine detail in the catastrophe of her thoughts.

She had eventually managed to call their neighbours, about an hour into the drive. They were halfway there, she comforted herself. And besides, Roman’s condition has not worsened at all since they had left. He was just… the same.

“How’s he doing?” Blake asked, glancing in his rearview mirror, his hands gripping the steering wheel until his knuckles were powdery white. He was driving over the speed limit, braking hard to swerve around the dangerous mountain turns. It made her carsick, but the faster they went, the sooner they would be there and the sooner Roman would be safe.

“He’s the same… I don’t understand how this happened. Doesn’t he know he has to wear a helmet?”

“It makes sense, honey. He’s a teenager. He’s hanging out with his friends, he-” Blake paused to rip them around a steep bend in the mountain. Shirley grabbed the overhead handle to steady herself. “-he wants to be cool. I understand, I used to do the same thing in that skate park when I was his age. He’ll learn-” another bend “-I just hope that he will learn his lesson from all this, after it’s over.”

They passed a sign, alerting them that the hospital was less than two miles away. Shirley sighed with relief, her fingers cold and clammy from anxiousness. They screeched to a halt in front of the hospital doors a couple of minutes later. Shirley unclipped both her seatbelt and her sons, then waited for Blake to come around and open the door. They hauled his limp body to the edge of the seat, and then Blake scooped the teen into his arms and carried him swiftly to the entrance.

Shirley, scrambling after him, followed him through the sliding glass doors and into the hospital lobby. Shirley went straight to the desk, asking for help. The nice young lady at the desk - a blonde with doe brown eyes - perked up at the sight of them and immediately jumped into action.

“What’s his condition?” She asked, her sweet melodic voice echoing.

“We don’t know. He was skating this morning, came home with lots of scrapes. He just collapsed in our kitchen two hours ago; that's how long it took us to get here. He’s been unconscious ever since.”

The assistant clacked away on the keyboards, a look of furious concentration glued to her innocent face. “Nurses are on their way, they’ll be right with you,” she said after a couple of seconds. I’ll need you to fill out some papers for us, please. It’s mandatory.”

“Uh, sure, um… now?”

“That would be best,” the assistant said, her melodic voice managing only to cool some of the nerves that were wracked up in a fiery panic. “Don’t worry, your son is safe now, he’s in the best of hands.” The assistant handed her an enormous stack of papers and a pen across the counter. She smiled. “Thank you.”

By then the nurses had come, wheeling in a squeaky blue hospital bed. One of them helped Blake lower Roman onto the bed while the other two checked his vitals and started making note of his AVPU scale. He was wheeled off, leaving Shirley, Blake, the assistant, and an overly sized stack of papers alone in the windowless hospital lobby.


End file.
